SEX! Now That I Have Your Attention...

Elections can be boring. We’ve been listening to and reading the same blah-blah for more than two years. Wake me when they stop talking about trade policy. But ah, throw sex into the mix, and we sit bolt upright, straining to hear the next shoe dropping.

There’s no doubt that Mr. Trump is a vile human being on many levels, but his attitude toward women will be what sinks his candidacy for President. We’ve learned a little bit about the electoral system that elevated him. What about the cultural environment that helped shape him? This is an effort to explain, not excuse.

I am about the same age as he, so grew up in a time when gender roles were much more rigid. What defined masculinity in the media, in terms of relations with women, especially for very young men with little experience? There were two influences that seemed to stand out in my era: James Bond and Playboy. Sean Connery was a classic modern male in the movies, and Playboy gave us directions for how to do it, implying that the prize for doing so was a centerfold companion. If you were a man with money and a little celebrity status, you’d be entitled to these prizes if you just followed the rules. This is a gross oversimplification, of course, and gives you more information about me (TMI), perhaps, than it does about Mr. Trump.

The bottom line, though, is that men were offered quick and easy directions for “scoring” with women. And in Mr. Trump’s case, it seemed they worked much of the time, which only likely increased his sense of entitlement, power, and control. And the women, most of whom had no power, had to go along, fearing the consequences if they didn’t.

But there are no shortcuts to meaningful relationships. Following the same pattern and being rewarded for it is like a child learning to play Chopsticks on the piano and being disproportionately praised. He loves the praise so much, he plays the same tune over and over, maybe adding a few variations, but it’s still Chopsticks, and the control is comforting to him and adds to his confidence. And he misses out on all the other music the piano could produce – but for that, he would have to learn new pieces, which is challenging, and takes time, patience, and most of all, humility.

Emancipation takes time. Gloria Steinem is the Rosa Parks of the women’s movement, and taught us a lot, but absorbing it is a slow process. The media culture, even in Anno Domini 2016, doesn’t help, with misogyny, objectification, and body-shaming remaining prominent features. The constant stream of revelations about Mr. Trump’s escapades make us feel like taking three showers a day – but he is just one of the reasons why this discussion is needed so sorely.

It's Just Lunch

When it comes to race relations, I’ve often said that it seems like perpetual lunch hour at high school. Whom will we choose to sit with? If it’s our choice, it’s probably going to be people most like ourselves – those who look like us and think like us. This is our free time in an otherwise stressful day, so we want to do what’s most comfortable. Do we really want to sit with the “others”? Will we even be welcome?

For many of us, our default position in life is not to have our assumptions challenged, or learn anything new that might force us to think differently. We cling to our world view because, well, it’s there. Rocked boats and upset apple carts cause anxiety. It’s easy to maintain order in a closed mind – the furniture stays where we put it, and where we put it eventually gets to be where it belongs.

Often, when we encounter “others,” those encounters reinforce, rather than break, the stereotypes. White police officers tend to encounter black people only in the context of law enforcement situations, meaning, when there’s real, or perceived, trouble. And it works in reverse. When the encounter is over, the participants go back to where they were before, except with their stereotypical views of each other solidified. And once a gun is involved, they are rock-hard.

Our race is something we have no control over, and what people see of us is only what our particular collection of genes puts out front. I’ve also often said that if we all took one of those increasingly popular DNA tests, we’d find all kinds of flies in the ointment we weren’t expecting. We may think we’re white or black or yellow, but then we find other races in our backgrounds – genes which could only have gotten there one way. A man and a woman of different races had to have intimate contact – something that either happened in recent history or many generations back. But clearly, as is often pointed out, we are much more alike than we are different.

If we’re all going to just get along, as Rodney King once said, we have to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time: celebrate our diversity while also celebrating our sameness. It’s lunchtime, and maybe just once, we can try to sit with those “others” at their table. We will be uncomfortable, and we’re likely not going to feel welcome. But we have to start someplace.

Bathroom Break

I’m still trying to get my head around this transgender bathroom thing. I don’t know which side of the fence I’m on, or supposed to be on, or if there needs to be a fence.

I was raised, as most of us were, with the idea that there were male and female bathrooms. That seems perfectly normal. We were all likely raised with the bathrooms in our homes being unisex, because they had doors. I do remember when I was in radio interviewing a male celebrity in his hotel room. He excused himself after we were finished, to use the bathroom. He peed, but did not close the door. OK, maybe that’s what went on in his house. I’ll just say that whenever there is a door of any kind, I take advantage of it (a little TMI there for you).

Anyway, so now we have a state that is in trouble for a new law saying transgender people have to use the bathroom according to the gender on their birth certificate. And a decree from the Obama administration saying transgenders have to be allowed to use the bathroom of their self-identity in schools. I know this is an issue for transgenders, but does it really require a decree? Can’t the schools figure out the logistics?

I must confess I have never gone into a general-use male bathroom in a public place and found myself saying, “That’s a transgender, what is SHE doing here?” Maybe I was just never in a bathroom with a transgender. More likely, if there was one, she, or should I say he, was just good at gender-appropriate dress and stuff, and I didn’t notice. I was busy with other things.

What is the core fear here? Could it be that a woman will self-identity as a man, or vice-versa, in order to go into the opposite sex’s bathroom to stare at them? How often does THAT happen? How do we know that gay men or women don’t do that right now? Well, usually that is not their priority either, in the bathroom.

All that said, does this whole thing need to be taken down to the school level? Do children have those self-identification skills? Will they be honest? How are the cisgender, or gender-of-birth kids, supposed to react to it, or are we just trying to raise them not to care?

I will say this, though. If you are happy with the gender you were born into, you are fortunate. This is something you don’t have to sort out for yourself. You can concentrate on other things. If you are attracted to the opposite sex, that is also something you don’t have to spend too much time figuring out, you are also lucky. You’re in with the in crowd.

As I get older I find myself trying not to judge others for self–identity or sexual preference. There, but for the grace of God, genetics, or wiring, go I. But do we need all this legislation, or just a dose of awareness and understanding?

Dead or Alive

When I worked in radio, the air personalities at my station had a little game called Dead or Alive. They would throw out the name of a former celebrity and take calls from listeners as to whether the individual in question still walked the Earth. After a while, they would reveal the answer, with information about what that person was doing now, if, of course, he or she was still in a position to do anything except decompose. A fun game for its time, now rendered obsolete by Google and sites like Wikipedia.

The game itself is still very much alive, though, where our Constitution is involved, and has a lot of players these days, thanks largely to the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. It is now widely known that he believed the Constitution to be a “dead” document. Meaning, this is what the Founding Fathers and their successors wrote, and they knew what they were doing, so the job of a Supreme Court justice is to interpret the law, not add to it. But is it really dead?

Well, one obvious question that arises is, if the Constitution is dead, why has it been amended so many times? These were things that were added to the document, which means that from the get-go, it has been clear that it must not have been perfect or specific enough, and the courts and the Congress, and even the Founding Fathers themselves, felt the need to fuss with it. And those very amendments had to be undone in some cases. Like Prohibition, for instance.

There really is no such thing as a dead document, even if it’s revered. Moses came down from the mountain with those stone tablets with 10 commandments on them. But human beings just can’t leave things alone – the Jews over time came up with something like 600 other sacred rules that had to be followed. Moses had enough trouble bringing down the Commandments. He’d still be up there if he had to schlep down all the other stuff too.

Most of us agree that our Constitution is brilliant, and we admire the prescience of our Founding Fathers for creating it, with all those checks and balances. But trying to get into their heads doesn’t always work. When we try to get into someone else’s head, most of the time we are still running around in our own. The Founding Fathers, of course, couldn’t possibly have foreseen all the situations their document would have to be applied to.

The problem with sacred documents is that they need interpretation. So we have arguments over whether corporations are people or whether we all have the right to bear arms. The courts are there to settle these arguments. But the settlements themselves are no more sacred than the original texts. They get fussed with. The Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, knew that was going to happen, and made provision for it.

Maybe their greatest legacy was the knowledge that it’s dangerous to let words become too sacred. Through all the tinkering that goes on, we eventually arrive at principles that stand out as universally valuable. That love doesn’t have anything to do with gender, or that equal does not mean separate. But are corporations really people? I have a feeling someone’s going to be getting back to us on that one.

No Love Lost

My basic problem with 2016 is that I just don’t like any of the Presidential candidates much. I mean on a personal level, let alone a philosophical one. On the Republican side, you know how I feel about Trump, I think, but surprisingly, if it were between him and Ted Cruz, I prefer Trump. He makes me angry, but he also makes me laugh or smile. For Cruz, I have this deep visceral dislike, and from what I’ve heard, I am far from alone in that.  I can’t really warm up to any of the others on the GOP side. Rubio I don’t quite trust. Carly is good, but she makes too much stuff up. Kasich can be a whiner. Bush may be the best qualified of the group but still comes off as a wimp. God deliver me, but I almost like Chris Christie. He’s got the Trump anger in him, but whether you agree with him or not, he has a brain too.

On the Democratic side, Bernie is a little too doctrinaire for me. Interesting that with all that white hair up there, nobody is playing the age card against him. Hillary is clearly the most qualified of any candidate running on either side to hold the office. But I just don’t like her. No, don’t go there, it’s not that. I LOVE strong women, that isn’t it. I find myself almost warming up to O’Malley for some reason.

But OK, do we have to like or admire our candidates? That’s a tough one. Don’t you wish we had Presidents like Martin Sheen from the West Wing?  Or Michael Douglas from The American President? Or Harrison Ford? Morgan Freeman? But it’s not that way.

The problem is we are electing human beings, and they just don’t rise to the level of the people we see on the big or the small screen or whose faces we see on our money.  We revere Abraham Lincoln, for example, but when he was alive, many didn’t, and it wasn’t just Southerners. The whole nation seemed to weep when FDR died, but in my family, even after his death, Roosevelt, meaning Franklin, was still a dirty word. And Teddy was great, but he was a hunter, and how would that sit with folks these days?

Even so, wouldn’t it be nice if we had at least someone to choose from that we genuinely had a good feeling for? Is it the system that produces the wrong people, or do we, or I, to be clear, simply have unrealistic expectations? Why does it always seem as if we have to pick through the battered merchandise left on the shelf at 11:59 on Christmas Eve?

Well, it’s all far from done, and as time goes on, and there’s still time, maybe somebody will finally win me over.

It's Only Money

I’m looking forward to Wednesday night, when it’s very more than likely the “What Would You Do with It?” Powerball stories will end, or it will be the concern of just one or more lucky people. If you’re asking me what I’d do with one and a half billion, well, I just don’t know, and I think I probably don’t deserve to win unless I have more concrete plans.

Look, I probably need $100,000 for various reasons, mostly to fix things that need fixing. I could maybe use about $5 or $10 million, but beyond that, it takes mental energy and creativity, which sounds like work.

I don’t need a bigger house, or a nicer car. Traveling sounds good, but I’d be the sort who wants to stay in one place too long. I love destinations, but I hate the getting-there-and-back part, though it would be nice in my own plane. A place to stay in a few favorite spots would be good, though there’s no need to own them. Space travel? That’s OK, I can stay home and watch the DVD. Run for office? I don’t think so. Then there’s the issue of seeing relationships altered because of everyone knowing I had money, and the need for security. Almost like an expensive witness protection lifestyle.

I sort of admire people like William Randolph Hearst, believe it or not, who had a vision of what to do with his money. It wasn’t just a bigger house. It was San Simeon, for heaven’s sake.

No, if I won the Powerball, I would give most of it away, but as selfishly as possible. By that I mean placing it directly in the hands of someone who needs it and seeing the face light up. For example, I know several young people now who have fantastic gifts of talent and vision, but who are struggling with day-to-day life because of illnesses that medical insurance just won’t cover, or they can’t afford the insurance. Money likely wouldn’t cure their diseases, but at least they wouldn’t have to sweat the small stuff anymore.

But could I give money away to people I don’t know and I don’t see in faraway places, or create a foundation that could deal with some world problem? I don’t know. Other people have already been there and done that, or are there and doing that, so I’d likely give money to their causes. Which means I don’t really need the money in the first place. What would be nice to have is their passion. That’s really where the wealth is, and if I haven’t taken the trouble to create my own dreams, I would try to find people who have them. Again, I would want to give it to them directly to see those faces light up.

Now to the nuts and bolts part. I actually think this Powerball Fever stuff is kind of a good thing. It’s one of those events that almost everyone seems to be involved in. People are buying tickets who don’t ordinarily buy them. If I were you, I would buy just one. You can spare the two bucks, and just having one chance is infinitely better than not playing at all -- but mathematically speaking, a second or third ticket just isn’t worth it. I’m not good at math, but that much I know. And as the clerk says at the convenience market, good luck!